


Twelve Plus Tax

by Skinandpit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 04:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2255793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skinandpit/pseuds/Skinandpit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Sam looked homeless, Dean thought. He was wearing the same grey shirt with holes he’d been wearing for the past three days and his hair was unbrushed and he had this look in his eyes like someone hunted. </i>
</p>
<p>Dean takes his eleven-year-old brother to a bookshop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twelve Plus Tax

When he was fifteen, Dean brought Sam down to the bookstore and gave him twelve dollars to get anything he wanted. A book plus tax, he figured. Dad was back so they didn’t have to count their money so carefully anymore. He was going to pay for food and maybe some laundry if Dean could keep Sam from whining.

Sam skulked around the bookshop with his hands in his pockets and the manager in her pretty green shirt eyeing him suspiciously. He looked mad at all the books, mad at all the world, and finally he came up to Dean with Dante’s _Paradisio_ clutched in his hands. It had a picture of an angel on it, with its big white wings spread. 

“Dude,” Dean said, when he saw. “You don’t want to read that.” 

“Why not.” Sam had this look he got when he was trying to provoke someone into pissing him off, his lip twisted downwards like it was getting ready to be a snarl.

“Cause — Sam, you’re eleven.” 

The manager was watching them carefully.

Sam scowled. 

Dean plucked it out of his hands. “And look, it’s twenty five bucks.” He looked down at Sam’s glare, which was edging towards some kind of eleven-year-old tantrum. Sam was always pretty angry, but he got catastrophic whenever Dad showed up after a long time away. Dean didn’t want a fight. He never did, but especially not today. “Okay,” Dean said. “Look, okay, fine, but you’re not getting anything else until, like … Christmas.” 

Before he knew what was happening, Sam had slammed the book against his chest. “Fine,” he said. “Fine, whatever, we never have any money for anything, anyway” and then he turned, and stormed off. The little bell on the door shook, and Dean could see the manager turning away, relaxing.

Sam looked homeless, Dean thought. He was wearing the same grey shirt with holes he’d been wearing for the past three days and his hair was unbrushed and he had this look in his eyes like someone hunted. He smelled musty, which Dean hadn’t noticed until Dad got pissed at him for forgetting to make Sam shower.

He didn’t want to think about it anymore, so he turned away and started flipping through the books.

The manager was looking at him, too, but not as carefully as she’d watched Sam. Dean was always pretty particular about his clothes and about bathing. He worried about the way he looked. Selfish, he thought, viscously, and bit hard at the inside of his cheek.

He felt in his pocket for the twelve dollars he’d set aside. It was still there — he could still get something. 

He passed a hand across his face, then looked around. The manager still had half an eye on him. Dean went to the cashier instead. 

She was very pretty, with her hair pushed over one shoulder, pink lipstick on her mouth, and she was carefully arranging a stapler next to the register. 

“Hey,” he said. “I’m looking for a book for my kid brother.” 

She lifted her head. Her brows were furrowed. Dean couldn’t remember if that was the case before she looked at him. “The one who just left?” 

He nodded. 

“The one who stole something?” 

“He — what?” 

She shrugged. 

“Sam didn’t steal anything,” Dean said. “He’s a good kid. Cries when he steps on snails. Come on. I just want to get something for him. Hoping you could recommend a book.” 

She twisted up her mouth, then shrugged again. “Why don’t you get him the book he wanted? Seemed pretty serious about it.”

“Cause it was that Dante thing. Not really age-appropriate. He’d give up in an hour.”

“That Dante thing.” She said it like she thought it was stupid. It put his back up against the wall, for some reason. He got this urge now and again to prove he wasn’t the person people thought he was, and it nearly always ended badly. 

“The comedy. I’ve read it. Read it at a friend’s house.” He’d found it in Bobby’s bookshelf, battered, and he’d taken it out because it was big and interesting and sort of fiction. He’d liked it right away. The beasts, snarling. The angel with its hand out. There was something in it that tugged at a part of him he didn’t know existed, but he didn’t want to say that, wasn’t even sure he was allowed to say that.

“I liked it,” he said again. “Maybe I’ll read it to him.” 

She gave him a long look, then turned back to her stapler. “Try Percy Jackson. More age appropriate.” 

He thanked her, then went back into the shelves and found it and paid for it in fives and ones. Their money was all gathered up from bars, and even though it was irrational, he worried she could smell that on them. He didn’t understand why he cared so much. 

When he left, the bell rang behind him, the same way it had when Sam stormed out. It was on a wire, and there wasn’t much you could do to make it louder or quieter. 

The walk home was quiet and it left him with too much time to think. He thought about sitting down and reading the book he’d got for Sam, but he didn’t want to be away from the house much longer. He was already going to be in trouble with Dad.

That turned out not to matter, because when he got back to the motel, Dad was gone again. 

Sam was sitting in front of the television, cartoons flickering across the screen while he ignored it. Dean pushed the door shut and went to sit next to him. 

“Where’s Dad?”

Sam shrugged. His eyes looked glazed over, like he’d been crying for hours, except Dean knew he hasn’t been, because they’d been together just a short while ago. He was holding a book in his hands. _Paradiso,_ the one Dean said he hadn’t taken. 

“Sam, Jesus —“ Dean took things sometimes, sure, but things they needed. Food, bottled water in places you couldn’t drink from the taps, soap. Never things they just wanted.

He was going to yell when Sam put his head on Dean’s shoulder and shut his eyes and all of a sudden he couldn’t be angry anymore. He couldn’t think of anything except how Sam had taken the last of the canticas, the one where everything turned out okay, and how Sam had probably only done it by accident. He put his arm around Sam’s shoulder and held him there and neither of them said anything at all.


End file.
